Today, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) announced that they will stop paying healthcare professionals for speaking engagements and for attendance at medical conferences. Furthermore, GSK announced they will abandon individual prescription sales targets. They are looking to have the new compensation system in place in all of countries GSK operates by “early 2015.” Specifically, GSK states that they […]
Category Archives: Pharmaceutical and Device
CME, Pharmaceutical and Device, Physician Payment Sunshine Act: Final Rule
Physician Payment Sunshine Act: Pfizer Grants Opts for Supporting Only Programs Accredited by the Five Bodies and No Meals
08
Aug
Aug
This week, Pfizer, Inc. announced a change to its continuing education (CE) and continuing medical education (CME) policies in response to the Physician Payment Sunshine Act, which went into effect August 1st. The announcement came from Pfizer’s Independent Grants for Learning & Change (IGL&C) department (formerly the Medical Education Group). In addition, Pfizer held a […]
CME, Pharmaceutical and Device
Medical Device CEO Jeff Binder Stands Up for Corporate Support of Continuing Medical Education
06
Dec
Dec
Criticism surrounding commercially supported continuing medical education (CME) has remained constant over the past several years, despite growing evidence that such support creates little if any bias. However, as Jeffrey R. Binder, President and CEO of Biomet, Inc. recently posted, the logic of industry critics who argue against commercial support of CME and graduate medical […]
22
Sep
Sep
Last week we wrote a commentary on a Boston Globe article that covered the start up of a continuing medical education publishing company that while billing itself as “independent,” is being run by former consultants and staff members of M/C Communications (PriMed). We found it particularly interesting that the founders of this company, known as […]
ACCME, CME, Pharmaceutical and Device
Decrease in Commercial Support of CME Correlates with Increase in Medication Errors
29
Jul
Jul
While the percentage of commercial support for continuing medical education (CME) has continued to drastically drop over the past few years (29% decrease from 2007 to 2009), recent data, which show an epidemic of medication errors in hospitals, make this decrease even more troublesome. At a time when 30 million more patients will flood our […]
Academic Organizations, CME, Pharmaceutical and Device
Oncology: Europe Beating US Hands Down on Innovation and CME – the Dumbing Down of US Oncologists
21
Jul
Jul
An interesting video and script from MedScape recently discussed a troubling trend in clinical research regarding gastrointestinal (GI) cancers. According to John L. Marshall, Associate Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University, in Washington, DC, all of the major research in this area over the last five years “has been led by Europeans, performed by Europeans, […]
According to a recent article in the New York Times, Stanford today will “announce plans to develop new continuing education programs for doctors that will be devoid of drug industry influence.” As is the case for most media accounts of continuing medical education (CME), the article makes an exaggerated claim that industry influence has […]